Apple-Orange Announce End Of Exclusive Partnership in France

After a tumultuous few months, Apple and Orange have finally decided to break their exclusive partnership in France. 

This follows a December 2008 ruling by France's competition authority that the exclusive partnership was against healthy competition in the segment. 

Late last year, we had written about the complaint filed by Bouygues Telecom, the third largest mobile operator in France that claimed that the exclusive partnership between Apple and Orange, the largest mobile operator in the country violated the freedom of competition and pricing laws. 

Post its investigations, the Competition authority had ruled that the exclusive agreement "by nature introduces a new factor of rigidity in a sector that already lacks competition". That was meant to be a temporary ruling in favor of Boyugues which was later upheld earlier this year. 

Months later, the two companies have finally announced that they are prematurely calling off their five year exclusive agreement. This announcement has now opened up the French iPhone market wide open for other carriers as well which, in a way, can be good for Apple, but not so good for Orange. The share price of France Telecom, the parent company of Orange has already seen a 2% drop since the announcement. 

Nevertheless, this has been a mixed week for Orange. The wireless carrier is all set to bring the iPhones to the UK customers from November 10 and had only recently announced their pricing plans. Incidentally, while Orange broke into O2's exclusivity in UK, the company was forced to forego the same in France. 

With this, France joins the group of countries where Apple has moved away from exclusive carrier partnerships. Other countries to have recently made it to the list include Canada and the UK. As for the American customers on AT&T, the wait continues. 

[via Total Telecom]

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